A new Economic Policy Institute report finds that domestic workers are paid extremely low wages—particularly in the South, where nearly one-third of the country’s domestic workers live.
Domestic workers are the 2.3 million workers nationwide who provide vital support to our elders and chronically ill or disabled family members, care for our children, and help maintain our households. Despite their vital role in supporting U.S. households and the economy, the typical domestic worker was paid only $20,926 per year in 2023, less than half as much (44%) as non-domestic workers ($47,270). In the South, the typical domestic worker earned just $18,252 annually in 2023, the lowest level of any region and 61% less than the typical non-domestic worker in the United States.
Most domestic workers across the country are women (88.1%). In the South, domestic workers are even more likely to be women (90.9%), and the majority (61%) are women of color. Black women make up 9.5% of non-domestic workers in the South, but they compose 30.5% of domestic workers, the highest share of any region. Immigrants are also a key part of the domestic care workforce. This means that the Trump administration’s and aligned state lawmakers’ anti-immigrant actions pose an immediate threat to these workers and the communities that depend on their care.
As the report explains, the low wages of caregiving domestic workers in the South are emblematic of the broad devaluing of care work throughout the U.S. economy and the devaluing of work performed by women, immigrants, and workers of color. This is inextricable from the legacy of slavery and the evolution of the racist, anti-worker Southern economic development model.
Domestic workers have also been left out of many of the protections afforded to other workers. Federal anti-discrimination laws including the Civil Rights Act generally cover employers with multiple employees, effectively excluding many domestic workers. Domestic workers are also excluded from the National Labor Relations Act and often have no pathway to unionization and the wage and safety benefits unions can provide.
Among other policies, the report recommends that federal, state, and local lawmakers adopt Domestic Worker Bill of Rights legislation to extend workplace protections to domestic workers.
“U.S. domestic workers provide vital services in an economy that has long devalued them. The extremely low pay and poor working conditions that domestic workers face—particularly in the South—ultimately reflect racist and gendered notions of care. State policymakers have an important role to play in extending the rights and protections of domestic workers, who have, for too long, been expected to care for our families and communities while not receiving that same care in return,” said Nina Mast, policy and economic analyst for EPI’s Economic Analysis and Research Network (EARN).